Steve Johnstone was driving a Division I football coach to Roque’s house in Ontario, a typical recruiting trip to meet the lineman from Ontario High School.

“It was kind of a tough area back then,” said Johnstone, the Jaguars’ former head coach.

“There were like, seven guys that walked in front of the vehicle and said, `You can’t go anywhere.’ Then one said, `Oh, you’re the white guy who coaches Juan.’ We were allowed to go through by the gangs at the time only because we were allowed to see Roque.”

“It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood,” Johnstone said, laughing, “but what a great story.”

On Saturday, Roque will be inducted into the Arizona State University Sports Hall of Fame, a far cry from his humble beginnings. Speaking via telephone from his home in Arizona, Roque said he teared up then laughed – “Every emotion rolled into one,” he said – when he was informed of the honor.

He joins just two other offensive linemen in the school’s hall, Randall McDaniel and Danny Villa, and proudly points out he’ll be just the second inductee of Mexican-American descent.

Roque said the only drawback is his father, Armando, who succumbed to cancer in 2006, won’t be present.

“It’s going to be on the back of my mind,” Roque said. “He’s watching from up above, but it’s emotional.”

In 1996, a season in which the 11-1 Sun Devils advanced to the Rose Bowl, Roque was named a consensus All-American in a class that included Orlando Pace. Pace became the first overall pick in the next year’s NFL draft, and Roque went 35th overall to the Detroit Lions in the second round.

But Roque saw his NFL career cut short on one play, 13 games into his rookie year, in the Lions’ annual Thanksgiving Day contest. The Lions beat the Bears that day, 55-20, but Roque lost the rest of the season and all of the next when he injured two ligaments in his left knee on one play.

He came back to play four games with the Lions in 1999 before sustaining a season-ending injury to his right knee. It was the last straw in Roque’s NFL career.

“I was never a great athlete,” he said. “I was a gym rat who studied film. I wasn’t like an Orlando Pace, who can move like a ballerina with all that weight.”

Roque attempted a comeback with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts that lasted just short of two seasons. His knee was hurting, there was a dispute over pay and, more importantly, he said, “My heart wasn’t in it anymore.”

After dabbling in the mortgage industry, Roque turned to the legal profession. He still works as a legal administrator for Phillips & Associates, which he said is Arizona’s biggest law firm.

He added a special side job in 2007, when he became color analyst for ASU football games on Fox Sports Arizona. It’s the first broadcasting position Roque has held and, even if it doesn’t work out long term, he’s got a pretty good fallback gig.

None of it, Roque said, would have been possible without the tough love he received under Johnstone at Ontario High School.

As a junior, Roque was suspended from the team late in the season, with the Jaguars facing a possible playoff berth. In suspending Roque – who had violated Johnstone’s rule about avoiding a specific part of campus – the coach believed more than just the team’s playoff hopes were at stake.

“If I was really concerned with going to the playoffs or winning league my first year (as head coach), I would have kept him in the game,” said Johnstone, who’s currently an assistant coach at Ontario High.

“But at the time, he had an inability to listen to the right people. There was a bigger picture to this kid.”

A picture that, as far as football is concerned, soon will be complete.

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